NDP candidate Catherine Fife celebrates her stunning win of the K-W riding with party leader Andrea Horwath in September. Fife won more than 41 per cent of the vote and said the win still hasn't completely sunk in.

“To be honest, every day I wake up and I am still so thrilled with that result and occasionally pleasantly surprised,” said Fife, MPP for Kitchener-Waterloo, while seated in her King Street South constituency office a few days before Christmas.

It’s been a roller-coaster year for Fife. From the summer-long campaign and exhilarating election win on Sept. 6 — a win that denied the Liberals a majority government — to the proroguing of the legislature a little over a month later and the ongoing labour strife between teachers, the union and the government.

For Fife, though, the highlight of 2012 was when she finally had the opportunity to stand inside the legislature with her family to be sworn in as a member of the NDP following her third-place finish in 2007.

Yet the energy and enthusiasm that accompanied her election win — and saw NDP MPs and MPPs including Toronto MP Olivia Chow, widow of former party leader Jack Layton, and current federal party leader Thomas Mulcair make stops in the riding — was quickly erased by disappointment and frustration when Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty announced his retirement and subsequent prorogation of the legislature on Oct. 15.

“For me, that was just a blatant abuse of power by the premier,” said Fife, who is concerned about the move leading to further cynicism in politics.

“It’s not good for democracy.”

Equally as troubling is the way the government has allowed nine years of peace and stability with teachers to come under serious risk, she said.

Fife, a former trustee and chair of the Waterloo Region District School Board, vice president of the Canadian School Boards’ Association and president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, called Bill 115 —which removes the teachers’ right to strike and imposes a wage freeze — an “unprecedented piece of legislation” with which the Liberals have no exit strategy.

The NDP has called for the legislature to reconvene and Bill 115 overturned to help resolve what Fife called a “poisoned environment,” and to allow teachers and their unions to reach local settlements.

“We didn’t have to get to this place,” she said.

Fife said it is difficult to predict what might happen in 2013, but she did say no matter which candidate wins the Liberal leadership race on Jan. 26, they will “inherit a mess.”

Whether that mess leads to a spring election — which Fife said many in the community are anticipating — remains to be seen. In the meantime, the NDP are preparing accordingly.

For now, Fife just wants to get back to work and do the job more than 18,000 local voters elected her do to last fall.

“For me it was a dream come true to win in K-W and I hope to actually get a chance to put some of the ideas and policies into play to strengthen this community. There’s definitely room for improvement in politics. People want more, and they should want more, from their politicians.”